GPS Review: Whistle.
I accidentally got Tino a pink unit, but it looks good on him. We’ve had this unit for about a week. Earlier, I purchased a unit in March of 2022, and it lasted until July. Then it simply stopped working, even though it appeared undamaged. I contacted customer support, and their suggestions didn’t help. I didn’t work too hard at reviving the dead unit because, really, my dogs are a low risk for going missing. I just wanted it as a redundant safety measure. I bought a new unit last week because I would like that added safety assurance, and also because I wanted to test it again, to write a review.
It probably goes without saying, but I will say it anyway: Mu and Tino mean everything to me. Of course, I love Fozzie and Sky just as much, but I need Tino and Mu in order to do my work. They are my family. They are my friends. If I have something that could be called a soul, it resides within my dogs. My dogs are the most important things in my life. I pay attention to what they are telling me, and we work as partners to find lost dogs and cats. I rely on them to do important work. Also, the community at large relies on them. There aren’t many search dogs that find lost pets, and they are a valuable resource for our area, for pets and their families. Although it would have to be a very unusual circumstance for one of my dogs to go missing, there is a slight chance it could happen. Providing them with GPS trackers is a redundant safety measure on top of all of the other loss prevention measures I take with my dogs. It’s like smoke detectors: I have never actually had a fire in my home and needed the smoke detectors, but I’m glad they are there just in case. I hope everyone loves their dogs as much as I do, and it’s a good idea to have GPS even if your dog is not an escape artist. If your dog is a frequent flier, or if he is new to your home, or if you have risk factors that could increase the chances of your dog going missing, then I definitely recommend GPS. Of all the units I’ve tried so far, Whistle is probably the best, or tied for 1st place.
The Whistle tracker does other things, like track Tino’s activity. It supposedly also knows how much he is licking or scratching, which seems to be not very much. I’m with Tino 24 hours a day on most days, except when Mu & I have a search, in which case I’m with him 20 hours a day. The health monitoring function is not that useful to me. I would have purchased a unit that only does GPS location, if they offered that. If you want the health monitoring functions, they seem to work, as far as I know. I haven’t actually timed his minutes of activity to see if the tracker is accurate.
As a locating device, the Whistle tracker seems to work quite well. I have tested the location function in a variety of areas. I live in a ravine, where reception is weak. The tracking unit seems to take longer to connect near my home. In the park, where reception is fine, the tracker connects in about a minute, and it updates frequently and accurately. If Tino was actually missing, I feel confident I could locate him with the Whistle tracker. In certain areas with weaker coverage, it could take longer. Of course, our travels sometimes take us outside the range of cellular networks. In Western Washington, if Tino was truly lost, separated from me, it seems likely that he would eventually travel to within cell range and we would get a ping. Of the thousands of lost dogs we have searched for, 97% of the time they were lost in an area with cellular coverage. I would trust Whistle to locate my dog, as long as the battery didn’t run out.
The battery life is acceptable. Theoretically, we could get up to three weeks of battery life, if Tino was near the home WiFi base most of the time. He goes everywhere with me, which drains the battery faster, but it still lasts a week. Whistle notifies me that the battery is low, and reminds me to charge it. Ideally, I would like to charge the unit any time it gets below 50%. If you had a dog that was at a higher risk of going missing, you wouldn’t want him to run off when his tracker only had one day of juice left. It could take a while to catch up to him, so you would want him to have plenty of battery. Even if you charge the unit any time it gets below 50%, you can still go three days, or maybe ten days between charging, depending on your dog’s activity. Someday, I hope they will make a tracker that recharges itself as the dog moves, with some sort of inertial device. Until such a day, the Whistle tracker has a satisfactory battery life.
The app is fairly easy to use. The interface is not too cluttered. I like that the health stuff is separate from the location function, so you get the important information with out extra nonsense. The app seems to be reliable, which is important. It hasn’t ever crashed on me.
I was not pleased with technical support. I would still recommend Whistle, and hope you don’t have to call technical support. I have to say, I can’t recall ever being happy with customer service or technical support for any large company I have needed to contact. In every case, you get canned responses, if you can get a response at all. Whistle customer support doesn’t seem any more terrible than other large companies.
Compared to the Tractive unit, which I reviewed earlier, the Whistle tracker has many advantages. Primarily, it locates better and faster. Also very important is that the battery life is twice to three times as long. This may be due to the fact that the Tractive unit won’t connect to my WiFi, but how ridiculous is it that Tractive wouldn’t connect to every commonly available WiFi? The light on the Whistle tracker is quite visible, compared to the dim light on the Tractive unit. One thing I prefer about the Tractive unit is that its shape is more streamlined, and lower profile. The Whistle unit is a clunky box. It doesn’t matter much on 105-pound Tino, but it would really stick out on 13-pound Fozzie.
One thing I don’t like about the Whistle tracker is how it attaches to the collar. Tino requires a collar that is double the thickness of a regular collar. He has broken regular collars just by the force he puts on them when he pulls suddenly. Because his collar is twice as thick, the Velcro strap to attach the unit is hanging on by a little tab of fabric. It hasn’t come off so far, but it makes me nervous. The Tractive unit has a rubber fastener that more easily accommodates Tino’s thick collar. Whistle offers a collar that has a receptacle for the unit. If I was really worried about the unit staying on, I could have Tino wear two collars, one for attaching the leash, and one just for the GPS unit.
Someone I know has a spirited dog who is an escape artist. He can get over a regular fence and they have had to raise the height of the fence. He also has learned how to open gates sometimes. He is clever, and he watches for opportunities to go on a solo adventure. He likes to run around and explore the neighborhood, and he is very fast. They have used the Whistle device to locate him on many occasions. It updates quickly so they can see his current location, not where he was a minute ago. I haven’t needed to locate my dogs because they were actually lost in at least nine years. Fozzie used to be a frequent flier, but he has settled down. My friend who needs to rely on a tracking device, and has used it in actual situations where her dog was missing, recommends Whistle.
The cost for Whistle is $93, which is twice the cost of the Tractive unit, but well worth it. The subscription is $8 or $10 per month, depending on how you pay, and comparable to the Tractive subscription. Because Tractive does not locate your dog very well, I wouldn’t rely on Tractive even if it was free.
My dogs are the most important thing in my life, and I feel safer with Whistle trackers on them. I do not trust Tractive, and if my dogs were at a high risk of going missing, I would much prefer the Whistle tracker. I have also used Fi, which seems to work fine, and I will review that tracker next.
I love the Whistle tracker, too. It has located my large black dog twice in low lighting (once at night, once in early morning). Both times, I reconnected with him quickly, a good thing given his coloring and size; many people do not know him to be the sensitive sweet dog that I do and might be scared seeing him running without his family member attached to his leash. Other friends have had similar great Whistle experiences. When I had to replace an earlier version of the the Whistle tracker that had come detached from his collar (and promptly flew into the storm sewer in the rain), Whistle gave me a discount on a new one and the velcro attachment and new charging system has worked well. Battery life has been good, too. Thanks for these reviews!